And The Olympic Gold For Freestyle Stupidity Goes To Dick Morris Of Fox News

Posted by on July 31, 2012 at 11:15 am. 2 Comments :

Dick Morris has done it again. I wouldn’t cover this ignorant gasbag if it wasn’t so much damn fun. He has absolutely nothing of substance to say and what he does say is certifiably bonkers.

Dick Morris

Last night on the Sean Hannity program on Fox News (not exactly a Mensa gathering either), Hannity introduced his theory that Bill Clinton would be a drag on President Obama’s reelection campaign:

Hannity: You know Bill Clinton better than anybody else. Now here is a guy that I suspect, before all is said and done, is gonna, in his own way, undermine Barack Obama’s reelection chances.

First of all, Morris has not had any relationship with Clinton for sixteen years, since he was fired when it was revealed that he had allowed a toe-sucking prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. That’s the sort of character that compelled Fox News to hire Morris. In response to Hannity, Morris said this:

Morris: I guarantee you, Sean, based on what I have heard from third parties or I have spoken to that William Jefferson Clinton is going to cast his ballot for Mitt Romney. However, he’s going to open his mouth for Barack Obama because his wife is hostage. They have her under lock and key as secretary of state, and he is scared that Obama will lose and blame him if he undermines Obama. So he will do everything he asks him to do and then he will jab him whenever he can.

Of course. It’s so obvious. Right after Clinton officially nominates Obama at the Democratic convention he’s going to rush off and vote against him. As if denying Obama that one vote will counter all the positive PR his convention speech will produce. Morris thinks that a life-long Democrat is prepared to vote against a Democratic incumbent for president based on what he’s heard from third parties.

The business about Hillary, however, is the truly idiotic part of this. Morris seems to think that making a woman the most powerful diplomat in the world is equivalent to tying her up in the back room of a flop house. And if Clinton is so worried about being blamed for an Obama loss why would tell anyone that he that he is voting for Romney? Particularly anyone who would actually speak to Dick Morris.

The manure spread by Morris is high grade bullshit. And it’s something he does frequently. Take for example his 2008 book “Condi vs. Hillary,” which contained his astute prediction for the 2008 race in the title. That didn’t exactly pan out for him, did it? From the introduction to the book:

{T]here is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is on a virtually uncontested trajectory to win the Democratic nomination and, very likely, the 2008 presidential election. She has no serious opposition in her party […]

The stakes are high. In 2008, no ordinary white male Republican candidate will do. Forget Bill Frist, George Allen, and George Pataki. Hillary would easily beat any of them. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain? Either of them could probably win, but neither will ever be nominated by the Republican Party.

So Morris got the Democratic nominee wrong, despite his conviction that there was “no doubt.” He also got the Republican nominee wrong. And the Republican who Morris said could not be nominated, but would win if he were, was nominated but actually lost. Is there any way he could have been more wrong?

And now Morris delivers that sort of analysis on Fox News. It is perfectly aligned with the low bar for intelligence and reason that Fox sets for their pundits and anchors. And anyone who watches and believes this tripe deserves the howls of ridicule they will receive when they are inevitably proven to be as stupid as Morris et al.

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IMPLOMACY: Mitt Romney Goes To Israel And Insults Palestinians

Posted by on July 30, 2012 at 8:32 pm. 4 Comments :

After insulting the British, Mitt Romney jetted off to the Middle East and promptly insulted Palestinians. The frequency with which Romney creates international incidents is more than slightly suggestive of his unfitness to serve as president. And his proclivity for such gaffes begs for a new word to describe his imploding diplomacy, which I am calling “Implomacy.”

This time Romney was attempting to praise Israel as a prosperous and productive nation, but in his inimitably derisive manner, Romney approached the subject from a direction that portrayed Palestinians as inferior culturally.

Romney: Culture makes all the difference. […] As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality. […] And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.

Let’s set aside for the moment that Romney badly misstated the economic facts. According to the World Bank, in 2011 Israel’s GDP was $31,000 per capita, compared to just over $1,500 in the West Bank and Gaza. But the bigger problem with Romney’s remarks is that they are an affront to people who do not have control over their economy. Israel enforces severe restrictions on the territories inhabited by Palestinians. Granted, they may have good cause considering the threat of attacks that have originated from those territories, but the resultant economic conditions can hardly be attributed to any cultural shortcomings on the part of the Palestinian people. The inappropriateness of Romney’s comments are evident if you take the same comments and replace the names of those involved. For instance…

As you come here and you see the median household income, for instance, in Beverly Hills which is about $96,000 dollars, and compare that with the median income just across town in Watts, which is more like $25,000, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality. […] And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.

Would Romney suggest that the residents of Watts are culturally inferior? Or Harlem? Or Mississippi? Does he notice a “dramatically stark difference” in the vitality of residents of Greenwich, CT, as compared to those in West Virginia?

If Romney were to have said something along these lines he would have certainly forfeited the votes of those communities. The problem with his doing it in Israel is that, were he president, he could fatally harm the efforts to bring the region to a negotiated peace. As it stands now, how willing do you think the Palestinians would be to trust Romney to be a fair dealer in future peace talks?

This is not a trivial political dust-up. Lives hang in the balance. And Romney is proving that his hamfisted boorishness is too dangerous to take a chance on. He continues to make us wonder who means by “us.”

Mitt Romney


Mitt Romney’s Shocking Confession: I Am Unqualified To Be President

Posted by on July 30, 2012 at 12:02 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s not often that a candidate for president will publicly declare that he doesn’t consider himself to be qualified for the office he is seeking. But that is precisely what the putative Republican nominee Mitt Romney has just done.

In an interview with ABC News this weekend, Romney was asked about his stubborn refusal to make his tax returns public, as almost every candidate for president has done since his own father set the precedent over forty years ago. Romney’s response was a typically arrogant expression of his sense of privilege wherein members of his elitist caste are not subject to the rules that the rest of the riff raff have to live by:

Romney: “I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president,”

Once again Romney has stuck to his position that he doesn’t believe that the American people are worthy appraisers of his fitness for office or that they are entitled to ascertain whether he has had any shady dealings or conflicts of interest. And with a financial portfolio as vast as Romney’s, conflicts are difficult to avoid.

But what’s really interesting is his self-assessment about what qualifies one to be president. According to Romney the criteria includes whether or not you ever overpaid your federal income taxes. Unfortunately, Romney’s determined defiance to reveal his tax returns prevents us from applying his own criteria so that we make a judgment as to his qualifications.

However, another source has emerged that may settle the question. Ben Domenech, of the ultra-rightist web site RedState, has discovered what Romney is really hiding. The truth, according to Domenech, is that Romney did overpay his federal taxes. Domenech, citing “people who were familiar with the veep vetting process for McCain in 2008,” said…

“We know he turned over more than two decades of returns to the McCain campaign during the veepstakes vetting process. What was in them? Mitt’s taxes were complex, but clean. He overpaid his taxes.”

There you have it. The only people other than Romney’s accounting staff who have seen his tax returns have affirmed that Romney overpaid. Romney believes that such overpayment of taxes is a disqualification for the presidency. That might explain his obstinance with regards to being honest with voters about his taxes. He doesn’t want them to know that he is an unqualified hack by his own standards.

For the record, I don’t buy for minute that Romney overpaid his taxes. That’s a transparently biased polishing of his record by a far right-wing toady who opened his big mouth before Romney laid out his silly principle of overpayment. Now it has doubled back to bite him in the ass. But the controversy illustrates just how tone-deaf Romney is about the tax return issue. Voters need to know that their president is not a crook (h/t R. Nixon), but Romney will not provide the documentation necessary for us to make an informed judgment. It’s clear that Romney has made his own judgment as articulated by conservative George Will (along with eighteen other prominent conservatives):

“The costs of not releasing the returns are clear, therefore he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them.”

Exactly. And that’s why the American people need to know more about Romney before they can ever take his candidacy seriously.


New Fox News Promo Asks: Everyone Should Vote? Answers: No

Posted by on July 27, 2012 at 12:03 pm. 10 Comments :

In a promotion for a new John Stossel program on Fox News, the viewer is asked whether “everyone should vote.” That question, which by itself belittles the traditional American value of Democracy and civic participation, is followed by a loud game show style buzzer and a big red circle with a line through it – the universal symbol for the negative.

So once again, Fox is taking a position in favor of shrinking the electorate. It’s a position that is consistent with their campaign to help states purge their voter rolls of undesirable voters like minorities, seniors, students, and the poor. The evidence of their determination to undermine free elections is overwhelming. The vast majority of those on the purge lists of states like Florida and Pennsylvania are citizens who would be likely to vote Democratic. And just this morning a report revealed that the former head of the Florida Republican Party admitted in a court deposition that the party openly discussed plans aimed at “keeping blacks from voting.”

Conservatives have long had an aversion to full participation in Democracy. They believe that the right to vote is extended too generously to members of society that they don’t happen to like. Here is a brief sampling of their recent remarks on the subject beginning with Stossel himself:

John Stossel (Fox News): “Let’s stop saying everyone should vote.”

Matthew Vadum: “Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country.”

Rush Limbaugh: “If people cannot even feed and clothe themselves, should they be allowed to vote?”

Judson Phillips (Tea Party Nation): “If you’re not a property owner, I’m sorry, but property owners have a little bit more of a vested stake in the community than not property owners do.”

Steve Doocy (Fox News): “With 47% of Americans not paying taxes – 47% – should those who don”t pay be allowed to vote?”

Republicans know they can’t win elections honestly, so they plot to steal elections by preventing, discouraging, and obstructing legitimate citizens from voting. And this new program on Fox is further evidence of their brazen disrespect for Democracy.


Fox Nation Tries Out New Misquote Of Obama For The Romney Machine

Posted by on July 26, 2012 at 2:22 am. 15 Comments :

The folks at the Romney campaign, and their PR reps at Fox News, must have been pleased with the phony controversy they created by deceitfully editing President Obama’s remarks. Their dishonest portrayal of the President as dismissive of the efforts of business developers successfully exploited the short attention spans of many media pundits while simultaneously stimulating the drool glands of conservative dittoheads.

So satisfied with their reality distortion, they are already testing a new iteration on the Fox Nation web site: “Obama: Our Union Isn’t Perfect”

Fox Nation

Consistent with their modus operandi, the Fox Nationalists have excerpted an out-of-context snippet from a speech Obama delivered to the National Urban League. The rhetorical surgery creates a deliberately false impression of the President’s views. In this case, the intent is to malign Obama for insulting America which, of course, he never did. Here is a more complete segment of Obama’s remarks where he was recalling his work on behalf of low-income families in Chicago:

“I confess the progress didn’t come quickly, and it did not come easily. Sometimes it didn’t come at all. There were times where I thought about giving up and moving on. But what kept me going day in and day out was the same thing that has sustained the Urban League all these years. The same thing that sustains all of you. And that is the belief that in America, change is always possible. That our union may not be perfect, but it is perfectible. That we can strive over time, through effort and sweat and blood and tears until it is the place we imagine. It may come in fits and starts, at a pace that can be slow and frustrating, but if we are willing to push through all the doubt and the cynicism and the weariness, then yes, we can form that more perfect union.”

The far-right wingnuts who manage to squeeze something derogatory out of these words are fundamentally dim-witted. They are the sort of patriopathic zealots who can’t comprehend that nothing, including America, is perfect. And despite their glassy-eyed flag-lust, they are not even aware that it was our founders who set the nation on a course to perfect the union. They even wrote it into the Constitution.

Obama’s speech was an indisputably positive expression of the limitless scope of opportunity that America represents. It was an affirmation of our nation’s unique ability to grow and to heal despite all obstacles. Yet the gloomsayers at Fox managed to dial up their pessimism and animus and extract something so utterly contrary that it bears no resemblance to the meaning intended by the President.

It is that ability to detour so sharply from the obvious that makes Fox Nation such a productive factory of falsehoods. And it should surprise no one if this warped wording becomes the subject of Mitt Romney’s next lie-riddled advertisement. After all, Fox is the testing grounds for Romney’s campaign of manufactured outrage. You might call it his hissy fitness center.

Check out Jon Stewart’s brilliant take on the subject:



Fox And Friends Exploits Children To Advance Their GOP Agenda

Posted by on July 24, 2012 at 11:45 am. 11 Comments :

This morning on Fox And Friends, host Brian Kilmeade conducted an interview that demonstrated the lengths to which Fox will go to distort reality and pander to the ignorance of their audience. The segment featured two adorable girls, aged 7 and 4, who Kilmeade exploited in a most disturbing manner.

Fox News

The subject of the interview was the sidewalk enterprise the girls had set up selling lemonade. But Kilmeade perverted that classic American endeavor into a political attack on President Obama. His creepy inquisition of the kids furthered the Fox-generated lie that the President had insulted small business owners by recognizing correctly that they benefit from the collective contributions of society. And Kilmeade recruited these children to advance his dishonest political smear.

Kilmeade: These two girls built their lemonade business not only without government help, but without any help. […] How do you feel about the president saying that you needed help to start this business?
Clara Sutton: I would say that’s rude because we worked very hard to build this business. But we did have help. Our help came from our investors, our dad and step-mom, along with other friends and family.

When an alleged “news” network asks a 7 year old about the political implications of a presidential speech, you know they are either reaching in desperation for a new angle from which to attack a political foe, or they are conceding that their audience isn’t capable of understanding anything above the level of child.

Even so, Clara’s answer affirmed that she required help to build her business, contradicting the premise of Kilmeade’s question. The only parties whom she credited were her family, but, as a 7 year old, she can be forgiven for having neglected to give credit to the government entities that provided the sidewalk where she located her business, the water she used in her product, the streets her customers used to drive to her stand, the safety provided by law enforcement, and the deduction she represented on her parents tax returns.

Expecting a child to grasp the complexities of a political argument may be a little much to ask. That’s particularly true when the adult asking the question has deliberately lied in his presentation. No doubt the case being made by Fox was eagerly assimilated by their audience who probably can’t comprehend at a level much beyond that of young Clara, but the attempt to corral a child into a partisan debate is disgusting and exploitative. But what’s really sad is that it is not surprising that Fox News would sink to such despicable depths.

Update: Added video.

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The Two Biggest Lies Told By Advocates Of Homicide Guns

Posted by on July 23, 2012 at 8:50 pm. 26 Comments :

It’s time that we stop using language that disguises the atrocity of devices whose only purpose is to fill cemeteries with corpses. What people often refer to as “assault” weapons would be more accurately described as “homicide” guns. They are used for killing people, period. They have no sporting function whatsoever. And those who assert that access to these weapons is somehow a paramount right of Americanism are delusional. Our founders never anticipated anything with this sort of destructive force being placed into the hands of civilians.

The two most commonly argued positions in support of homicide gun ownership are easy to rebut. That’s because they make little sense.

First of all, homicide gun advocates believe that if someone is intent on harming others, he will find a way to carry out his monstrous mission whether guns are legal or not. That is a wild and unsupportable assumption. Perhaps some prospective mass murderers might be determined and resourceful enough to carry out their plans no matter what legal obstacles they encounter. But more likely they will be impeded and perhaps thwarted entirely.

Most people would not know where to begin looking for black market arms. And in the pursuit of such contraband they could raise suspicions that result in their capture and arrest before they could ever harm anyone. Here is an example of just such a case wherein the perpetrator was discovered, monitored, and apprehended, precisely because he was seeking unlawful weapons. So it’s a lie to say that this person would have been able to carry out his plan despite the law. Given the proper legal tools, more of these miscreants can be taken off the streets before blood is running in them.

Those criminals who fail to acquire the artillery they desire may still be dangerous. The lack of homicide guns may not completely deter someone from committing a crime. But a rampaging maniac with a knife or a common handgun would be much easier to subdue and would cause far less harm.

The second lie is one that is now being regurgitated by homicide gun advocates incessantly. They assert that if someone in the theater in Aurora were armed, he would have been able to end the massacre. That’s another wild and unsupported assumption. If a moviegoer were to have stood up and started firing in a dark theater filled with tear gas, he would probably have done more harm than good. His bullets might very well have found innocent victims. He would have drawn the fire of the perpetrator which would likely have killed him and all those seated adjacent to him. And he would have had zero chance of bringing down the gunman who was covered, head to toe, in body armor. A citizen with a handgun would be no match for a shielded attacker with multiple semi-automatic weapons.

We have an obligation to make our society as safe as possible without imposing on our liberties. Rational legislation that takes military grade weapons off the streets does not violate the Constitution. Anyone who argues that the “right to bear arms” includes machine guns, must also believe that it includes grenades, missile launchers, tanks, or even nuclear arms. Where do they draw the line? How about we not permit civilians to be better armed than the police we pay to protect us?

A famous advocate of these deadly weapons had something to say about this debate not too long ago in a message to his comrades:

“America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely, without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?” Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn (aka Azzam the American).

James Holmes / Adam Gadahn

If our terrorist enemies recognize the flaws in in our national security, maybe we should be doing something about it. Perhaps if we stopping calling the efforts to get homicide guns off the streets “gun control” and started calling it “massacre prevention” we could get somewhere.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: Who’s To Blame For Bad Economy?

Posted by on July 23, 2012 at 10:36 am. 1 Comments :

There have been numerous polls asking respondents to say who they hold responsible for the state of the American economy. In every one of them George W. Bush ranks at or near the top, with Congress and Wall Street following close behind. Usually President Obama is not the target of most of the blame.

Leave it to Fox News to come up with a poll that contradicts the others. And it should come as no surprise that the poll they’ve latched onto is the work of Rasmussen’s Pulse Opinion Research. However, even with a fixed pollster, and a rabidly partisan news outlet, Fox still finds it necessary to outright lie about the poll’s results:

Fox Nation Blames Obama

The headline of this article is blatantly false. In Rasmussen’s poll 34% said that Obama is the most to blame for the slow economic recovery. Most elementary school graduates know that that is not a majority. What’s more, if you add the responses of those who said that it was either Congress, Wall Street, or George W. Bush, it comes to a clear majority of 61% saying that Obama is not to blame. Some other significant results from the poll that Fox Nation declined to report are…

  • The poll found almost 6-in-10 are unhappy with the actions of Republicans in Congress who have challenged the president on an array of policy initiatives.
  • Fifty-seven percent of voters said congressional Republicans have impeded the recovery with their policies, and only 30 percent overall believe the GOP has done the right things to boost the economy.
  • Centrist voters, who may well decide the 2012 outcome, tend to blame Republicans in Congress more than the president for hindering a more robust recovery.
  • 53 percent of centrists said Obama has taken the right actions as president to boost the economy, compared with 38 percent who said he had taken the wrong steps.
  • Seventy-nine percent of centrist voters said Republicans had slowed the economy by taking wrong actions. Only 13 percent of centrists credited GOP lawmakers with policies that have helped the economy.

And that’s the poll that Fox Nation managed to feature on their website with a headline blaring that a “Majority Blame Obama For Bad Economy.” The Fox Nationalists must take great comfort in the knowledge that their audience is too stupid to actually look into anything themselves – or understand it if they did.


HUMILIATION: Breitbart News Tries To Blame Democrats For Dark Knight Shooting

Posted by on July 21, 2012 at 10:07 am. 17 Comments :

When it comes to integrity and journalistic ethics, Breitbart News ranks somewhere between the National Enquirer and the Tehran Times. It makes Fox News look like PBS. And they can be expected to sink to ever greater depths of depravity when a story emerges that permits them to dial up the sensationalism and political rhetoric to eye-bleeding levels. The tragic Dark Knight shooting in Aurora, Colorado, was such a story.

On the morning after the shootings all the news networks were engaged in an endlessly repetitious barrage of a limited set of facts and a boundless pool of speculation. It didn’t matter what channel you turned to, you would hear the same recitation of the number of fatalities and injuries, interviews with frightened witnesses, and reminiscences of Columbine. Consequently, there was a determined effort on the part of the reporters to uncover something – anything – that was new or interesting.

In the course of their investigation, ABC News discovered that there was a man associated with the Aurora Tea Party who had the same name as the shooting suspect. They prematurely reported that fact without first verifying whether they were the same person.

George Stephanopoulos: I’m going to go to Brian Ross. You’ve been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.
Brian Ross: There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.
Stephanopoulos: Okay, we’ll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.

ABC quickly corrected the report, but not before enduring some withering, and deserved, criticism. And it should be noted that, from the start, they acknowledged that all they had was speculation and that they were continuing to investigate. That’s not a proper justification, but it’s also not the same as making an outright accusation, which is what much of the right-wing media is saying.

Breitbart News leapt on this misstep with an article falsely charging “HUMILIATION: ABC News Tries To Blame Tea Party.” There was no attempt on the part of ABC News to blame anyone. They were following a lead and went to air before affirming it, but that’s not an assertion of blame. Breitbart’s column, by the notoriously addle-brained Joel Pollak, goes into hysterics over what he believes is an outrageous insult to his favorite extremist fringe group.

However, what makes Pollak’s pompous theatrics all the more ludicrous is that he immediately perpetrated the very same crime to which he took so much offense.

Breitbart News

Pollak’s article very directly accused the shooter of being a registered Democrat. He rambled through a list of supposed evidence that he never bothered to authenticate and arrived at a conclusion that he deemed certifiable. The only problem is that he was completely wrong – a state of being with which he must be comfortable by now. As it turns out, Pollak also had the wrong guy and the the suspect was not registered to vote at all.

So after castigating ABC for reporting incorrect information, Breitbrat Pollak did the same thing but took over five hours to make a correction. And even that was a weaselly effort that sought to explain away his incompetence by claiming that there was new information. Also, unlike ABC, Pollak included no apology for his gross error and slander of Democrats. But then that’s the sort of unprincipled, pseudo-reporting that is the hallmark of the Breitbart legacy.


Fox News Flim-Flam: Conning Latinos For Politics And Profit

Posted by on July 20, 2012 at 10:15 am. 3 Comments :

This article was also published on Alternet.

The reputation for Fox News as a brazenly biased, right-wing, mouthpiece for the Republican Party and a conservative agenda is well-established. From their upper-management (Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes) to their frontline anchors (Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity), they have forged a network that has entirely abandoned any pretense of impartiality.


That well-honed partisan prejudice has proven to be useful in poisoning the political discourse. Fox News has exploited their audience to favor GOP candidates and sway perceptions of complex issues like health care, economics, and the environment. Amongst the most prominent of the issues that Fox has sought to distort is immigration. Their reporting is relentless in falsely portraying immigrants as shiftless lawbreakers who steal jobs from American citizens and drain the nation of scarce public resources.

Fox viewers are accustomed to stories about “illegals” swarming across the border to take up residency in the U.S. and sponge off of our prosperity. They are vilified as criminals and blamed for everything from disease to the recession. There is hardly a mention of immigrants on Fox that isn’t associated with drunkenness, joblessness, or drug cartels.

Lately, however, someone at Fox News has recognized a major flaw in their strategy to demonize immigrants, particularly Latinos. One of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population happens to be legal Latinos who are either naturalized or natural-born citizens. The U.S. Census bureau reports that the Hispanic population grew at about four times the nation’s average growth rate between 2000 and 2010. The report notes that “the Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million between 2000 and 2010 and accounted for more than half of the total U.S. population increase of 27.3 million.”

The problem for Fox News, and their ideological benefactors, is that these are citizens who can vote and are registering in record numbers. This is particularly noticeable in states that are crucial for Republican electoral victories like Nevada, Arizona, and Florida. But the trend is evident in some measure throughout the country.

This situation poses a disconcerting problem for Fox. How do they maintain their editorial animosity toward immigrants without alienating an increasingly important voter group? The answer appears to be by developing news content specifically for this demographic and sequestering it from the rest of their viewership.

First to appear in this vein was the Fox News Latino web site. It is an English language adjunct to the Fox News site with content aimed directly at the Latino reader. However, the treatment of news events on Fox News Latino is markedly different from that on Fox News. Here are a few typical examples:

June 15, 2012: In response to President Obama’s announcement of a policy shift wherein certain young immigrants would be granted work permits rather than be deported, the Fox News Latino web site posted a story headlined, “Obama Administration Halts Deportations for Young Immigrants.” That’s a factually accurate description that treats the news in a neutral manner. The headline was accompanied by a sympathetic photo of a young Latina child draped with an American flag.

However, on Fox Nation they went with the headline “Obama Administration Bypasses Congress, To Give Immunity, Stop Deporting Younger Illegals.” In that short sentence they managed to imply impropriety on the part of the administration, infer the controversial subject of amnesty, and insult Latinos by employing the dehumanizing label of “illegals” (even though the people affected by this initiative did not break any law). The photo accompanying this article was of adult Latinos sitting up against a wall in handcuffs.

Fox Nation Bias

It is also notable that the Fox News Latino site posted the Associated Press article about the announcement in full. The Fox Nationalists posted only two paragraphs plus a video from Fox News of right-wing wacko Allen West expressing his outrage. This is further evidence that the Fox Nationalists want to avoid giving their dimwitted readers too much actual information, but prefer to throw up as much ultra-right-wing opinion as possible.

June 19, 2012: Bloomberg released a poll that showed that 64 percent of likely voters favor Obama’s policy on suspending deportations of certain younger immigrants. Note that this substantial majority is of “likely” voters, not just Latino voters. So the story has relevance to a wide range of news viewers and could even be an important predictor of who will win the presidency in November. Nevertheless, Fox News did not run this story. Fox Nation did not run this story. The only Fox destination where you can read this story is on Fox News Latino. So Fox is deliberately hiding from the rest of their audience the news that a substantial majority of Americans agree with this policy.

What’s more, the tone of the reporting is distinctly different from that on other Fox properties. There isn’t a hint of hostility toward immigrants. The story accurately refers to “prosecutorial discretion” as the means of carrying out the policy, rather than the false assertions of Executive Orders or dictatorial overreach that appear on Fox News. The derogatory phrase “illegals,” used routinely on Fox News, is nowhere in the story, having been replaced by “undocumented immigrant.” The story notes correctly that Congress, not the President, had dropped the ball on the DREAM Act and that it was Republicans who filibustered it out of existence. These are news insights that will never be seen by the broader Fox audience unless they happen to read Fox News Latino.

June 25, 2012: Fox News covered the Supreme Court ruling on the controversial Arizona law against undocumented immigrants in its uniquely racist way by tailoring the story differently to different audiences. On Fox News Latino the headline accurately reported that the “Court Strikes Down Most of AZ Immig Law.” However, on Fox Nation they went with the misleading, “U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Controversial Part of Tough Arizona Immigration Law.” Even Fox News was more balanced by saying that the “Supreme Court Reigns In Arizona On Immigration.”

Fox News Bias

Here we have one arm of Fox reporting that the law was struck down, and another arm saying it was upheld. So once again Fox panders to their Latino audience on the web site aimed at them, while slanting steeply in the opposite direction on Fox Nation, a community of such rancid bigotry that Fox had to close the comments section for fear of the vile postings that frequently occur. Obviously, Fox knows its audience.

July 8, 2012: The Fox News Latino web site featured an article from the Associated Press on the issue of voter suppression that was reported in a manner that respects the truth. The author correctly notes that instances of in-person voter fraud are nearly non-existent, but that the photo-ID laws advanced by Republicans will disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters.

On Fox News the typical approach to this story is the ludicrous assertion that opponents of ID laws are proponents of fraud, even though they can never cite actual incidents of fraud. The purpose is obvious. Fox News is working in concert with the GOP to purge Democrats from the voter rolls. However, on Fox’s Latino-focused web site the story is completely different. It is treated with the proper attention to the harm that would befall Latino voters.

In addition to the Fox News Latino web site, Fox recently announced that they are launching a new Spanish language broadcast television network, MundoFox. The network will feature both entertainment and news programming, but their initial press release states that they “will not have any association with Fox News Channel.” It also quotes the Senior VP of news, Jorge Mettey, describing the type of viewer they intend to attract in a particularly derogatory light:

“We are not focusing on the regular normal issues that newscasts in Spanish focus on, like immigration and that stuff. It is not our focus. We are talking to a different Latino. We are not talking to victims. We are talking to successful people eager to improve their lives.”

Apparently Mettey regards “regular normal” Latinos as victims who are uninterested in improving their lives, and he doesn’t want any of “them” watching his network. MundoFox is getting off to a great start by insulting a fair portion of their potential audience. This aggressive posturing is actually typical of the way Fox has launched all of their networks. When announcing Fox News as being “fair and balanced” they were implying that the other networks were not merely competitors, but that they were untrustworthy. When they launched the Fox Business Network they bragged that “a Fox channel would be ‘more business-friendly’ than CNBC.” Although it doesn’t really make much sense for a network that is supposed to be reporting objectively, for the benefit of people making investment decisions, to declare that they intend for their coverage to be friendly.

It is also notable that Mettey, has a somewhat checkered past. He was fired from his position as news director at KMEX in 2007, amidst allegations of ethical breaches. The Los Angeles Times reported that…

“The alleged improprieties investigated included whether Mettey had benefited financially from coverage of Puebla’s governor at a time when he was being criticized for his association with an accused pedophile and of an African-themed zoo in Puebla in which Mettey’s wife, Denise, has an ownership interest. In addition, the news division allegedly accepted free tickets on an Aeromexico flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Puebla.”

With the expansion into the Latino community, Fox is reaching out to connect with a new audience. In the process they are conducting themselves in an uncharacteristically fair and balanced manner. Make no mistake, there are good reasons for this atypical behavior on the part of Fox, and it isn’t just the immense economic opportunity (although that is certainly a factor). Roger Ailes, Fox News CEO, was a Republican strategist and media consultant before launching Fox with Rupert Murdoch. Ailes knows that Republicans have a demographics problem as Latinos continue to grow as a percentage of the population and, therefore, the electorate. The Tea Party dominated GOP can’t see past their prejudices and frothing immigrant hatred. But Ailes knows that if the party doesn’t win back some Latino support they will be a minority party for decades to come.

So with Fox News Latino and MundoFox, Ailes is doing for the party what they are too stupid to do for themselves – pandering to the Latino vote. They think they can segregate the reporting so that their Latino audience will see stories that are framed positively, while the rest of the Fox universe remains steeped in the animus of bigots and conservative partisans. It’s a cynical ploy that could only be hatched by people who think that Latinos are stupid enough to fall for it. Fortunately, that’s where Fox is most likely going to be proved wrong.

Update: Media Matters just posted a similar article with quotes from Latino leaders expressing their skepticism of Fox’s Latino news coverage and motives.

Update II: They’ve done it again. Fox News Latino published an article about emails revealed during an ACLU litigation that expose the racial hatred of former Arizona senate president Russell Pearce (author of the controversial immigration law). But a cursory search of Fox News did not turn up any reporting on this shocking story. However, I eventually found a re-posting of an Associated Press article on the subject buried in Fox’s “SciTech” section. That’s right – “SciTech,” not “News” or “Politics” – is where Fox posts an article about a legal challenge to a politician’s immigration law that is littered with racist remarks. So Fox makes this information available to their Fox News Latino readers, but clumsily tries to hide it from the rest of their audience.

Fox News Latino